Note 216 — Chapter III

In the preceding year he had written to Sir Charles Metcalfe, “You are quite right in believing that I have not a thought of interference between the Afghans and the Sikhs. I should not be sorry to see strong, independent, and commercial powers established in Afghanistan; but short of Persian or Russian occupation, their present state is as unsatisfactory as possible, with national, family, and religious feuds so inveterate as almost to make one party ready to join any invader against another. It is out of the question that we can ever gain direct power or influence amongst them.”—[Life of Lord Metcalfe, vol. ii. p. 307.] It was upon the basis of this assumption that he subsequently reared the delusive project of re-establishing “the integrity of the Douranee Empire.”